1/16

Oh wow I am so bad, I can't believe I'm almost a week behind in posting an update!  Many apologies!

There aren't an abundance of giant changes, the past week has been more of a slow and steady climb.  He had his follow-up appointment with Infectious Disease (they are another team involved in managing his viral encephalitis).  Like everyone else, they were completely impressed with how well he's doing.  The attending physician said that he was "staggered" and that my dad looks the way he would expect him to look at 3-4 months out, not just 6 weeks out.  His mental status has really been rebounding quite nicely.

Of course the big drawback continues to be the neck pain though.  It's constant and awful and affects everything he does.  The Neurontin has helped a tiny bit, but it really seems minimal.  We'll give it some more time and then explore some other options while his brain is healing.  It's hard to say how long the neck pain will last, it may be another couple weeks, it may be another couple months.  That is an eternity when you have constant pain.

He's doing excellent with his outpatient PT and speech therapy.   Definitely getting stronger and sharper every day.  He told me today that he is anxious to get back to Gold's Gym, which is yet another encouraging sign of recovery.  I can tell he really wants to get his life and daily routine back.  So tomorrow I'm going to take him to Gold's Gym in the morning for a re-introduction to that aspect.  However, I should say that it will not be quite like his previous daily routine.  Did you know that my dad used to go to Gold's five days a week from 4:00am - 7:00am?  Yeah, this girl is NOT getting up that early.  I'm thinking more like 10:00.

His other short term goals have been to organize his belongings (which until now have been in clear tupperware containers from when we moved them back from Louisiana) and start attending Sunday breakfast at Aunt Evelyn's house.  His major long term goal is to drive his truck again.  He really misses that.  He's not quite ready just yet and he'll need to pass some tests by Occupational Therapy in order to drive again, but it's a great goal to aspire to and hopefully won't be too far off.  It's the real symbol of him getting his life back.